Pasta lunches like you get in the supermarket?

[CarpeJugulum]

I love the Chicken/Tomato/Basil salads you can buy for lunches from the supermarket. I'd like to try to make them myself.

I get the chicken, chopped tomato, basil etc, but what do they put on the pasta as a sauce? Sort of mayonnaise-y but tomato-y too?

Any ideas?

Msg

I add pesto to mine

Tomato mixed with creme fraiche

Very helpful onlywantsone :o

ooh, creme fraiche might work. And I could go low-fat to help... hmm...

Always a slob of Philly here.

How do you stop the pasta from going dry?

Even when I cooked pasta in a tomato & basil sauce, it dries out so if was to eat it cold or reheated, the sauce would be dry and stuck to the pasta, rather than a lovely liquidy sauce IYSWIM.

Yep - that problem here too.

Tiny bit of oil on the pasta and stir it round to coat it. You only need a tiny bit of olive oil but it stops it all sticking together. I think.

I just use a little olive oil and dried oregano as a sauce, tge oil also stops the pasta from drying out. Red pesto mixed with creme fraiche or just red pesto is nice and the oil in the pesto will stop your pasta drying out.

Domestic, if you cook the pasta in your sauce then add a little oil as soon as its cool it will stop it from drying out.

First add a bit of oil.

Then sauce.

Was also going to say red pesto

I love chickpeas thrown into a pasta salad, olives

Then msg

It occurs naturally in parmesan cheese! And in seaweed (sushi) and so sauce. I love a bit of umami (msg)

That's ideas for next week's lunches sorted

We do tiny drizzle olive oil then red pesto and mayo or mayo and bbq sauce.